because someone decided to drop the word 'ethostate' in the comments of a post about israel again, i thought we could play around with some numbers.
According to a 2023 statistic Jews make up about 73 % of Israel's population. Let's compare that with some other countries. (While ethnostate actually refers to racial or ethnic groups and Judaism isn't 'just a religion', I will also give examples for the demographics of religions in countries)
Let's start with the EU: According to statistics from 2019 about 64% of the EU's population were Christian, a decline from 72% in 2012. So what? In 2012 the EU was actually a Christian ethnostate? Or at least consisted of ethnostates? I mean if we think about it, we have to follow the Christian calendar, Christian holidays are mandated by the state while other religious groups have to fight every year to be able to observe their most sacred days. Hell, where I live (in Germany) one of the currently ruling parties is called the Christian Democratic Union and our Grundgesetz (basic law) is built upon Christian roots. They even invoke God in the preamble!
Here some further statistics about Religion in Europe.
As you can see even just looking at individual Christian denominations, there are about 6 countries for which the religious majority makes up more than 3/4th of the population. IN THESE COUNTRIES ONE DENOMINATION OF CHRISTIANITY HAS A HIGHER POPULATION PERCENTAGE THAN JEWS IN ISRAEL. So I hope this shows that 'Israel is an ethnostate cause there is just one religion determining everything' is utter bullshit not just because Judaism is not just a religion but also because I can name 6 countries in Europe alone for which there is a higher percentage of people of a certain religion.
So now to actually look at specific countries. Ireland especially seems to have an antisemitism problem, so how about we focus on them.
As of 2022 the amount of Catholics in Ireland has decreased so that they actually make up 69.1% of the population as opposed to the over 75% from 2019. But the definition of ethnostates actually specifically looks at ethnic or racial groups. Let's see. As of 2022 the largest ethnic group in were White Irish, making up a whole 76.5% of the Irish population. Including other white people in this, this number increases to 87.4% of the population. That is 14% more than the 73% that Jews make up of the Israeli population. The next largest group in Ireland are Asians with 3.7% (or depending on how you'd like to spin it, the 6.16% who did not state their ethnicity. This still doesn't make Ireland an ethnostate though.
China: 91.11% Han Chinese (2020)
Russia: 71.73% ethnic Russians (2021)
Saudi Arabia: 90% Arabs, 10% Afro-Arabs (2021)
Canada: 69.8% White (2022)
Germany: 71.3% Germans (2022)
Democratic Republic of Congo: no dominant ethnic group
South Africa: 81.4% Black
Just so it is completely clear: It is not my intention to call any of the countries listed here an ethnostate, rather I want to detail the absurdity of calling Israel an ethnostate, when you can look at demographics and see many other countries with similar or higher percentages of ethnic (or racial or religious) majorities.
